The crypto and NFT gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!
Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.
Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.
Biggest news
Notcoin token nears: Why was the Notcoin token delayed? Put simply, the team needed more time to line things up. Sasha Plotvinov, co-creator of Notcoin, told Decrypt’s GG that as the launch date approached, the team realized that pushing the date back would be the only way to roll out the token without a hitch.
The viral Telegram-based game originally set a target date of April 20, due to it being a “funny number” and it aligning with the Bitcoin halving event. Now, the team is eyeing up the “end of April,” which means it ought to drop in the next couple days here.
Notcoin's Co-Creator Explains the Game's Token Delay—And When to Expect NOT Now
Notcoin co-creator Sasha Plotvinov spoke with Decrypt's Sander Lutz at Token 2049 Dubai to discuss why the NOT token launch was pushed back from the original 4/20 target, when to expect the listing, and more.
$50M in Immutable rewards: The Main Quest is a rewards program that incentivizes players with up to $50 million worth of token rewards for playing games and interacting with Immutable’s new zkEVM network—a layer-2 Ethereum gaming network built with Polygon zkEVM tech.
Billed as the largest crypto gaming rewards program to date, players can also earn rewards for using decentralized exchanges and other apps on the network, providing liquidity for trading pools, and for trading Immutable NFTs.
Immutable zkEVM Offering Up to $50 Million in Token Rewards to Ethereum Gamers
Ethereum gaming platform Immutable announced on Thursday the launch of The Main Quest—a rewards program that will incentivize players with up to $50 million worth of token rewards for playing games and interacting with its new zkEVM network. Billed as the largest crypto gaming rewards program to date, The Main Quest will reward users of the recently launched Immutable zkEVM network—a layer-2 Ethereum gaming network built with Polygon zkEVM tech—for various actions. This includes earning tokens r...
Charles Hoskinson’s game: A studio from Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has released a fast-paced, sci-fi shooter on GalaChain—rather than his own network. Hoskinson is a board member of RFLXT, the company behind the newly released game, and the studio is a portfolio company of Hoskinson’s Input Output Global.
Voyager: Ascension is a relaunch of a Web2 game called Overload by some of the creators of old-school classic shooter, Descent. This time, the game is available for free (rather than for $30 on Steam) and will have some Web3 features implemented. While this game launched on GalaChain, RFLXT has plans to work with Cardano games in the future.
Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson's Studio Releases First Game—But It's on GalaChain
Outspoken Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson surprised Crypto Twitter last week when he announced his “first game is coming out,” alongside a trailer for a game launching on blockchain gaming platform Gala. When one user asked about it, Hoskinson simply replied, “I have six companies.” With Voyager: Ascension out today on Gala’s new GalaChain network, now we know a bit more about this particular company—and what Hoskinson’s involvement is. RFLXT, the company behind the game, told Decrypt that it...
ICYMI
- Animoca Brands Japan announced a collaboration with creators of the Final Fantasy franchise, Square Enix, to boost global marketing and adoption of the Symbiogenesis game and its associated NFTs.
- Puffverse, a gaming project that started on BNB Chain, is migrating over to Ethereum scaling network Ronin, and will launch a play-to-earn party game. The project also raised $3 million in a round led by Animoca Brands.
- InfiniGods, the mobile gaming studio behind King of Destiny, secured a $8 million Series A funding round from VC firm Pantera Capital.
- Heroes of Mavia reworked its token unlock schedule after the price fell 65% since its February all-time peak, with way fewer tokens now unlocking by February 2025.
- Ethereum mech shooter, MetalCore, is adding quests that let players earn MON tokens—the native token of Mon Protocol associated with Pixelmon.
FIRST LOOK at @RagmonNFT gameplay!!! @Ronin_Network pic.twitter.com/BBkf9IqQfm
— nix.ron 🈺 (@nixeniego) April 26, 2024
- We got a first look at the Ragnarok: Monster World game coming to the Ronin network.
- The Xai Foundation announced that it is bringing the trading card game The Lost Glitches to the Xai layer-3 Ethereum gaming network built on Arbitrum.
- The Machines Arena, an Ethereum-based top-down Overwatch-style shooter, entered open beta on the Epic Games Store, and released its Android mobile app.
- Uncharted.gg, a startup that includes a game studio and crypto infrastructure, raised a $1.7 million seed funding round.
- Decentraland will host a Game Expo within its metaverse world from June 26-29, and put out a call last week for games to participate.
GG spotlight
Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:
Why the 'Crypto: The Game' Winner Donated the $200K Prize to Support Tornado Cash Devs
The second season of Crypto: The Game—a competition inspired by reality TV hit “Survivor” that spans both online and real-world competitions—came to a conclusion last week with the anonymous winner, Player 733, taking home the prize pool of nearly 72 ETH (about $210,000). But they’re not keeping the crypto stash: The winner donated all of the ETH to a legal defense fund that supports Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm, developers of the Ethereum coin mixer Tornado Cash, who are facing charges for al...
What's Next for Notcoin? Becoming the 'Netflix of Social, Viral Games'
The creators of Telegram-based game Notcoin currently have their hands full, with millions of users eagerly anticipating the game’s imminent NOT token launch on The Open Network (TON). And yet, the game’s developers already have their sights set on even bigger things: Namely, transforming Notcoin from a viral, coin-tapping sensation into a comprehensive, scaled gaming ecosystem powered by a community of builders. “We want it to become the Netflix of social, viral games,” Open Builders founder Sa...
'Space Nation Online' Preview: Ethereum Game's Promising Beta Plagued by Server Issues
Space Nation Online is now in closed beta, offering gamers a glimpse into what the future of the sci-fi blockchain MMORPG—with NFTs on Ethereum, and plans to expand via scaling network Immutable zkEVM—will look like. But due to server overload, it’s been hard to fully appreciate the best parts of the game thus far. Space Nation was founded in 2019 by gaming industry veterans Jerome Wu and Tony Tang, along with filmmaker Roland Emmerich, who’s known as the “master of disaster” for directing the f...
GuildFi Rebrands to Zentry, Launching a 'Game of Games' to Reward Players
Guilds that emerged during the play-to-earn boom are evolving with the crypto gaming industry. Now GuildFi has announced plans to rebrand itself to Zentry, with plans to create a unified “superlayer” that rewards players across all types of games—those across multiple blockchains, but also Web2 games and even real-world social experiences. The firm began life back in the Axie Infinity days, running a scholarship program that lent players in-game NFTs in exchange for a cut of their play-to-earn i...
Edited by Andrew Hayward
